Michele Savidge Alastair Mclellan REAL QUICK First Edition Double Signed Holding Croft
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Michele Savidge Alastair Mclellan REAL QUICK First Edition Double Signed Holding Croft
First edition, first print hardback of REAL QUICK: Celebration of the West Indies Pace Quartets by Michele Savidge and Alastair Mclellan and published by Blandford/ Cassell plc., London in 1995. Signed by two West Indies cricket legends Colin Croft and Michael Holding on the title page. Foreword by Viv Richards OBE.The book is in very good condition (Clean red cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine) with only minor wear to the pictorial dust jacket which is not price clipped (light creasing to the edges). Internally, the pages are clean and tight and there are no tears and no other inscriptions.
Colin Croft was part of the potent West Indian quartet of fast bowlers from the late 70s and early 80s. With his height (6'5"), he bowled bouncers and was very aggressive. He was renowned for bowling wide of the crease over the wicket and angling the ball in to right-handers. Croft's figures of 8/29 against Pakistan in 1977 are still the best Test innings figures by a fast bowler from the West Indies. Since 1994, Croft has been doing cricket coverage part-time, as a commentator/analyst, and was one of the first writers for CricInfo, contributing over 500 articles so far to that entity. He provides expert analysis on the British Broadcasting Corporation's Test Match Special.
One of the fastest bowlers ever to play Test cricket, Michael Holding was nicknamed "Whispering Death" by umpires due to his quiet approach to the bowling crease. He was part of the fearsome West Indian pace battery, together with Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, Sylvester Clarke, Colin Croft, Wayne Daniel and the late Malcolm Marshall that devastated batting line-ups throughout the world in the seventies and early eighties.
Early in his Test career, in 1976, Holding broke the record for best bowling figures in a Test match by a West Indies bowler, 14 wickets for 149 runs (14/149). The record still stands. During his first-class cricket career, Holding played for Jamaica, Canterbury, Derbyshire, Lancashire and Tasmania. Holding was forced to retire from International cricket because of hamstring and back injuries in 1987, having played for only 12 years. He went on to work as a popular TV commentator and was a member of the inaugural induction class of the International Cricket Council Hall of Fame in 2009.
These are just two of the fast bowlers who are celebrated within the pages of this book.
"'How quick? Real quick! This has been the regular description given by West Indian cricketing aficionados when talking about the superfast pace bowlers who created the phenomenon of the recent Caribbean dominance of international cricket.
They said it about Wes Hall and Charlie Griffiths - a fearsome duo - but were soon able to use the epithet to describe a quartet as, year after year, the national side created, refined and mastered the strategy of employing four pace men. Some complained that the sight of unremitting speed made for dull cricket, though plenty remained excited by it. Others mourned the regular appearance of 'Windies' Test teams without a spin bowler, forecasting the demise of that particular bowling art. Many privately admitted that they would delight in their own team being able to employ the tactic, but were well aware it could not be so.
In Real Quick the authors use interviews with Test cricketers, statistics and observations to assess the impact of West Indian fast bowling. They talk to the bowlers themselves, their captains and the batsmen who have faced their onslaught for hour after haur. They demonstrate that it has been the application of practice and fitness, and of natural and tutored cricketing skills, which has made Caribbean pace bowling pre-eminent - the perfection of a sporting art that is truly worthy of admiration and celebration."
208 pages. Illustrated with several black & white photographs.
ISBN: 0 7137 2486 2
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Michele Savidge Alastair Mclellan REAL QUICK First Edition Double Signed Holding Croft